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Where Does Transformers Go From Here?

Sitting down to watch Transformers: The Last Knight, I had a small amount of hope and optimism that maybe, just maybe, this would be the good one. Five minutes later I cursed myself for being so stupid. You can check out Draz’s review here.

Five films in and this franchise feels exactly the same. It’s become stale and boring – you could take a scene from any of the five, throw them together and I’d struggle to tell you which movie it is from.

Michael Bay has given us one okay movie, and four pure shit ones. He says this is his last film and for the love of Cybertron, I hope it is true this time. Will Bay leaving the franchise ultimately improve it or is the series beyond repair?

So where does the Transformers franchise go from here? Should it even continue? In all honesty, I’d like to see another Transformers movie, I really would. But not with Michael Bay, and not with the same screenwriters. I want a whole new team tackling this project.

The Future

So what does the future hold for this franchise? A Bumblebee spin-offis already set for release for in 2018 and Transformers 6 has a tentative release date of 2019. We can only hope that the studios decide to make a major change and take the future films in a fresh, exciting direction, but it will be the money that influences their decisions.

That being said, The Last Knight is currently tracking to be the lowest opening Transformers movie for the first weekend. Now box office tracking isn’t gospel – Wonder Woman smashed the predicting numbers – but I’m holding out hope that after five movies, audiences are starting to get sick of seeing practically the same film over and over.

There were one or two interesting bits in The Last Knight – mainly a scene showing Bumblebee in World War II, that could serve as inspiration for the future of the franchise. But it all needs to start with a vision other than Bay’s.

The Director

Michael Bay can film a decent action scene – he’s got that going for him. While I don’t think his action set pieces are as great as the masses say, they’re above average. But we need some fresh blood injected into this franchise. Bay refuses to change and evolve – he is seemingly content with doing the same thing five times over. We need someone who is adaptable, can film sequences that will be filled out with CGI later and has a talented eye.

My pick would be Jon Favreau. Now he is tied up making a Jungle Book prequel and the live action Lion King, but I just have a feeling Favreau would know what to do with this property. Make it about the Transformers, not the dozen human characters scattered throughout. Other potentials would include Guillermo del Toro and George Miller – but who would you like to see take over?

The Story and Characters

Autobots and Decepticons look for something on Earth, they fight, end movie. Repeat that five times and there is our current franchise. It needs a little more to it than that. I’m not saying I need a deep, thought-provoking story about what it is to be a giant robot on a planet full of humans – I can watch The Iron Giant for that. But I need a little bit more development than “I want a car to impress a girl” or “I’m an inventor”.

The Last Knighthad a strange clash of tones in some places. You’d see war-torn Chicago from the events of Dark Of The Moon and it would feel almost post-apocalyptic at times. But then other places are business as usual, happy days. They need to pick one or the other – and I’d go for apocalyptic.

Two separate Transformers movies have basically had the same plot of bringing Cybertron to Earth now – just let it fucking happen already. Destroy the Earth or ravage it to a point where it becomes an irradiated wasteland and Transformers effectively run rampant. Think Mad Max but the cars transform.

We can follow a small group of human survivors (4 max, and I mean it) as they try to navigate the new world, hunted by the Decepticons and protected by the Autobots who, despite everything going against them, believe that humans should be saved. I’m no screenwriter, but I’d rather see my pitch than anything they’ve made so far.What do you think the future of the Transformers franchise should be? Who should direct? Sound off in the comments below and on Facebook.

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Had a love of movies for as long as I can remember. Enjoy all genres and try to see most everything that comes to the cinema (including the ones I know will be a painful experience). Favourite movies: Trainspotting, Star Wars, Jaws